it was the year of my favorite light
when I inherited
my grandmother’s dishes
stacked my barren shelves
with her exotic antiques
filled my fridge
with garden veggies from my friends
no money
for much more
it was the season of lilikoi
and he would gladly offer
the peach-fuzzed
nectar-filled
passion fruit
spilling from the pockets
of his pack
it was the time we pieced it together
finding coconuts
but not having a machete
trying
the delicate art of breaking
cracking with a hammer
reaping all rewards
in that one bedroom
upstairs
we may have been surrounded
by ratting, dandered cats
pussyfooting
past our windows
I just basked in light
streams of sun
filtering
exquisite
in the kitchen
cracked concrete counters
family heirlooms
and fresh harvest
We were walking the same path I used to tread over thirty years ago. I was still beside my sister, though now, we were also with her children. My husband and my twelve year-old son wandered up ahead.
When we were kids, just nine and seven, we’d follow this gravel driveway to the creek. Cross the empty country road, which hardly ever saw a car, and carefully skirt through a barbed wire fence to reach the banks of the low-level water. In the summer, green algae baked on sun-bleached rocks, and tadpoles wiggled in scarce pools within the shadows. We’d spend hours in the quiet, skipping stones and splashing in the rushes.
Today, much remains the same here, though I am decades older, and visiting this landscape with a new generation of family.
One change has been the road. What was once just an asphalt thread, way off the beaten path, has now become a thoroughfare to escape the city. Sports utility vehicles and careening motorcycles zoom along in search of country comfort and adventure. The road sees enough traffic now that the powers-that-be decided direction was needed. The guiding force of the double yellow line was etched along the pavement.
For me, the line is a symbol of irreversible change. A haven made vulnerable. A freedom tamed. Direction instituted, rather than intuited.
Though my son, Jeb, has only known this road for 12 short years, he still feels the poignancy of the double yellow line. At a critical crossroads in his own development, he can feel change.
So he gets down deep with the lens of his grandfather’s camera. There’s no traffic in this moment, and he’s low with the rough road, capturing the curve.
Scent can seal a moment and rewind time with one sniff.
An ineffable elixir, invisible, and hard to hold, yet smell can be a solid, guiding principle.
Just ask our puppy, Mae. She’s a tracker, and she follows her nose. Dogs live by their senses, and olfactories reign supreme.
Mae interacts with the world through her sniffer. Purely instinctual, no apologies. Her brown, damp schnozz, presses into everything, indiscriminate. No intellect, just genuine curiosity.
Her nostrils quiver in utter wonder. There is no self-consciousness in breathing in the most alien of objects, deeply. She wants to know this thing, and know its very essence.
Mae’s first time sniffing salt and sea
Some ancient peoples (Hawaiians, included) greet one another by coming face to face, breathing in each other’s breath. In this full and intimate introduction, one cannot hide. An exhale, empty of words, can’t lie.
Scent speaks. It is felt to the bones. Scent ignites the mind, yet is not of it.
I’ve been on my own interior trail, following my nose, listening to instinct. As an artist, as a writer, I thought I’d lost the scent there for a while. I was circling, just sniffing around, unsure.
But then the winds shifted, and there was a trace of something in the air. I dared to follow.
Attending a writing workshop this past weekend seemed to set me back upon my path. When asked to bring a piece of writing to the class with us, I chose William Stafford’s “The Way it Is.” One, because the poem is an anchor for me in my storytelling quest. And, two, because I was beginning to wonder if I had simply lost my personal thread. I hoped that through reciting the words, I may find my way again.
Gratefully, in the small room of writers with huge talent, I caught up with the thread that’s never left me. Their generously kind hearts and the keen insight of our instructor, Cheryl Strayed, reminded me to the familiar fragrance of my truest self.
We’ve all got the thread. The trail we’re tracking with all of our senses, mind, body and heart. We may get stalled, circle, or lose the scent, but maybe we are never truly lost. We just have to keep poking around, with utter curiosity, no apologies…following our noses.
“The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread.
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